Peruphile - Profile of Peru

Some interesting Shinning Path news....

2011-12-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

Shinning Path- leader says the movement is going from violent to finding finding a political solution.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/07/world/americas/peru-shining-path/index.html?hpt=ila_c2

Peru's Prime minister resigned this morning....

2011-12-10T16:12:00.000-08:00

... the most intriguing part of this is that there was no stated reason for the resignation.

hmmm.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/10/us-peru-primeminister-idUSTRE7B90LG20111210?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Peruvian food is blowing up

2011-09-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Looks like Peruvian food is blowing up- from Ceviche to "pollo a la brasa" to pisco sours it really is getting to be huge. It has been growing in popularity over the last couple of years but it is now reaching new heights.

Check out this huge restaurant being opened in NYC:
http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-570-Gaston-Acurios-La-Mar-55-Million-Gamble-on-Peru%E2%80%99s-Cebiche-in-NY/

Even the Wall Street Journal is proclaiming its the next big thing- check it out here:
http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-568-Peruvian-food-is-next-big-thing-says-Wall-Street-Journal/

Its pretty intense. Even just a couple of days ago the World's top chefs had a culinary meeting , informally being called the G9, in Lima praising Peruvian food. See that here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/12/chefs-aim-to-save-world

So now for my own plug, lol. I also have a recipe blog I put up to share some recipes with friends. If you are interested in making ceviche in the US here is my super easy (and authentic) recipe below:

http://jostagekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/04/pervuian-fish-ceviche-ceviche-de.html

Free trade agreements are going to be a challenge for Humala

2011-09-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

In recent news I just saw that Peru will soon ratify a free trade agreement with Panama. See the article here:

http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-542-Panamas-Congress-to-ratify-Peru-FTA-by-October/

This will be in addition to free trade agreements with the EU, Korea, the US, and others that have recently come to fruition. It is important for Peru to trade freely and overall will have positive economic results. This is also a positive situation for Humala for the moment and I would even speculate that this type of economic policy has caused his rise is popularity , reported yesterday. See here for that article:

http://www.peruviantimes.com/10/humalas-approval-rises-to-70-percent-poll/13652/

However, once the income starts coming in it will be very interesting how Humala balances the country's economic and social agendas. Afterall, in spite of record growth in Peru in the last 6 years due to market friendly policy there remained sufficient inequality and poverty to have seen these past presidential elections with the left-leaning ex-military officer Humala end up at the helm. So far he has not done poorly and really calmed the markets- but it will be tricky to switch on a strong and effective social agendat to pull those left out of the economic growth in recent years.

slow decentralization

2011-09-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

A new economics paper is finding that for the case of Peru, decentralization is necessary but should be done in concert with capacity building. This is very important and a message I agree with.

The title of the paper is:
More than You Can Handle: Decentralization and Spending Ability of Peruvian Municipalities (written by Norman Loayza, Jamele Rigolini, and Oscar Calvo-Gonzalez)

The abstract of the paper is:

In the past three decades, emerging countries have gone through extensive decentralization reforms. Yet, there are no studies assessing quantitatively the relative importance of various factors known to affect the success of decentralization. This paper builds on a comprehensive dataset the authors constructed for Peru, which merges municipal fiscal accounts with information about municipalities' characteristics such as population, poverty, education, and local politics. The paper then analyzes the leading factors affecting the ability of municipalities to execute the allocated budget using complementary methodologies, from least squares to quantile regression analyses. According to the existing literature and the Peruvian context, the analysis divides these factors into four categories: the budget size and allocation process; local capacity; local needs; and political economy constraints. Although all four factors affect decentralization, the largest determinant of spending ability is the adequacy of the budget with respect to local capacity. The results confirm the need for decentralization to be implemented gradually over time in parallel with strong capacity building efforts.

And Here is the link to the paper:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1911715

more taxes?

2011-09-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Peruvian informal sector is notoriously huge. One (of several) of the definition of the informal sector is those businesses that evade taxes. Well, now it seems that Humala's administration will attempt to improve this situation by increasing, in fact doubling, SUNAT's audits. SUNAT is Peru's version of the IRS.

Here is a link to the article:
http://www.peruviantimes.com/06/sunat-to-double-audits-to-tackle-tax-evasion-says-minister/13586/#more-13586

Decentrelization in a weird way

2011-09-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

Peruvian congress is going to hold its session not in Lima, but for once in the city of Ica about 3 hours south of Lima. They claim it is a way to engage with common citizens and decentralize. Sounds a bit like an autistic government. lol. Here is the link...

http://www.peruviantimes.com/02/congress-to-spend-47700-on-session-in-ica/13551/

Humala gets a B

2011-08-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

Peru's credit rating improved today which means that the Humala administration is showing signs that encourage investor confidence. Read the article Here.

This is a good sign amidst much suspense in terms of what Humala will actually do.

Mitas effect after all this time...

2011-08-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Another interesting article that came out recently. Mita was an arrangement whereby Spanish colonists pulled indigenous people out of their areas and made them work in new settlements in mines and other extractive activities. This new article in Econometrica, another very prestigeous economic journal indicates that the effects of this old exploitative system is still having negative consequences:

The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita authored by Melissa Dell

Abstract:

This study utilizes regression discontinuity to examine the long-run impacts of the mita, an extensive forced mining labor system in effect in Peru and Bolivia between 1573 and 1812. Results indicate that a mita effect lowers household consumption by around 25% and increases the prevalence of stunted growth in children by around 6 percentage points in subjected districts today. Using data from the Spanish Empire and Peruvian Republic to trace channels of institutional persistence, I show that the mita's influence has persisted through its impacts on land tenure and public goods provision. Mita districts historically had fewer large landowners and lower educational attainment. Today, they are less integrated into road networks and their residents are substantially more likely to be subsistence farmers.

Here is a link to the PDF of the article:
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/5645

Peruvian Congress Michael Moore style

2011-08-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

After this past election and the Peruvian president Humala some journalists went to a congress and were asking entering congressmen some basic question about Peruvian history a la Palin. Here are some of their humorous results:

Potatoes: a major contribution.

2011-08-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

Many know that potatoes come from Peru (not Ireland!). It took thousands of years of domestication to make the common potato edible. After the discovery of America potatoes were brought to Europe and distributed throughout. A recent article on one of the top and most prestigious journals in the field of economics has found that the introduction of potatoes to Europe can be associated with a quarter of the population growth in Europe. Wow. Here is a link to the article:

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/126/2/593.full

introduction

2011-08-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

i have an major interest in Peru. Born there and brought when I was still young I have dedicated much of my education and time to learning about Peru and where it can be improved. I read things all the time and wanted a outlet to share some of my thoughts. This blog will deal with anything/everything Peru related from culture to food to politics and economics.